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Topic: Ramana Maharshi Says Accomplishments Without Peace Of Mind Is Of No Use (Read 1167 times)

Devotee: “It seems that this L.N. Sastri is a great poet. Nagamma is all praise for his poems and tells me he is about the best Telugu poet who has come to Bhagavan for the past five or six years.” G. Subba Rao said: “Yes, I agree, he is a great poet.”

Bhagavan said, “He is a pandit in the Raja’s College at Vizianagaram. Nobody would take him for such a great poet. He looks a very ordinary man. He wants to compose extempore poems on any given subject. But all this is only activity of the mind.

The more you exercise the mind and the more success you have in composing verses or doing satavadanam (giving attention to many things at a time) the less peace you have.

What use is it to acquire such accomplishments if you don’t acquire peace? But if you tell such people this, it does not appeal to them. They can’t keep quiet. They must be composing songs.

As Nayana used to say: ‘In going forward one can run any distance at any speed, but when it is a question of going backward,that is turning inwards, even one step is hard to take.’

“Somehow it never occurs to me to write any book or compose poems. All the songs I have made were made at the request of someone or other in connection with some particular event. Even the Reality in Forty Verses, of which so many commentaries and translations now exist, was not planned as a book but consists of verses composed at different times and afterwards arranged as a book by Muruganar and others. Theonly poems that came to me spontaneously and compelled me,as it were, to compose them, without anyone urging me to do so,are the Eight Verses to Arunachala and the Eleven Verses to Arunachala.

Source: DAY BY DAY WITH BHAGAVAN From the Diary of A. DEVARAJA MUDALIAR

What Bhagavan Ramana has said is correct. There is a backgroundstory about Sri Arunachala Padigam. One day, when He was strollingon the Hill, suddenly the words, "Karunaiyal ennai" were coming toHim every now and then. He was thinking: "What am I going to dowith these words?" Still, the words were not leaving Him for long.After the stroll, He came to the Old Hall and started writing thefirst verse, with a pencil and paper. Then next day, He wanted tocomplete about 10 verses and other verses did follow. On seeingBhagavan Ramana writing the verses, he went with a paper andpencil behind Him. Then He wrote the remaining in verses in oneor two days. However, the score came to 11. Even though it is called Sri Arunachala Padigam, it contains eleven verses. Thisis permitted in Tamil poetry. Panchakam sometimes containssix verses. This is written as a mukta pada stotram. In every succeeding verse, the last word or phrase of the previous versewill be the first word or phrase. He then continued Sri ArunachalaAshtakam, which again continued with the last words or phraseof the last verse of Padigam, being the first words/phrase of thefirst verse of Ashtakam. Thus these 19 verses were written byBhagavan on His own volition.

Sri Arunachala Ashtakam, is the most difficult one to understand.Particularly the Verses 5 and 6 of Ashtakam are tricky ones.